Music and Lyrics
There remains confusion and debate over the line "Are we human, or are we dancer?" in the song's chorus due to its grammar. Debate raged across the Internet over whether the lyrics said "dancer", "dancers" or "denser", a misunderstanding which invoked conflicting interpretations of the song's meaning. On the band's official website, the biography section states that Flowers is singing "Are we human, or are we dancer?" and also says that the lyrics were inspired by a disparaging comment made by Hunter S. Thompson, where he stated America was raising "a generation of dancers". If "dancer" is taken as a collective noun for that generation, it works without the "s" (just as "human" does in the first part of the question).
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Flowers said that he was irritated over the confusion about the lyrics and also that fans were unhappy with the song's dance beat: "It's supposed to be a dance song, goes with the chorus...If you can't put that together, you're an idiot. I just don't get why there's a confusion about it."
Read more about this topic: Human (The Killers Song)
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